Mardi Gras

We look at a history of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Today it attracts huge media coverage and crowds that fill the streets, but it was a different story back in 1978 when it all began.

GEORGE NEGUS: Tonight, historic events - celebrating the diversity that is contemporary Australia. Not just sport, but things like the annual Sydney parade that started life as a street fight.

G'day. Welcome and all that polite stuff to another fascinating week here at GNT. Tonight, a look at some major events that have sprung up around this country over the years, like the ever-popular Adelaide Festival, and something labelled the 'Tour Down Under'. And we'll also have the very talented Stephen Page on the couch.

But before that, Sydney's famous Mardi Gras - or infamous, maybe, depending upon your point of view. Whatever you feel about the Mardi Gras, it's definitely blown all the conventional cultural, political and gender boundaries out of the water, and along the way, created its very own slice of Australian history. But back in 1978, when it all began, it was a very different story indeed.

KEN DAVIS: We've been having lesbian and gay activism in the streets since the early '70s. But, um, the Americans had been commemorating the anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969 every year with big marches.

DIANE MINNIS: Stonewall was a riot at the Stonewall bar in Greenwich Village in New York. It was a gay and lesbian and drag queen bar and it got raided very badly by the police in 1969. Uh, there was about two or three days of riots and, uh, everyone fought back, and that was really the birth of the modern gay liberation movement.

JULIE MCCROSSIN: Homosexuality, for men, was against the law and men were still being actively entrapped in public toilets by police pretending to be interested in sexual encounters. Women were told that Queen Victoria hadn't considered it could even happen, and therefore no law was required. It wasn't reassuring to know that your sexual preference was considered even to be non-existent or irrelevant.

RON AUSTIN: The thought occurred to me, after having seen some film on the American gay celebrations - Stonewall celebrations - that we should have a street party at night. A colleague suggested that, uh, "You mean a Mardi Gras?" And Mardi Gras was born.

SALLY COLECHIN: The evening was fantastic. It was cold. Everyone was wearing winter clothes. We were all gathered in anticipation of walking together down Oxford Street and hopefully encouraging a lot of lesbian and gay men to come out of the bars and participate - to feel proud to walk the streets.

Unfortunately, the police got incredibly intimidated by that and almost from the beginning, as we headed down Oxford Street, they basically started sweeping us down the street - "Come on. Come on. Come on." So that by the time we got to Hyde Park, they had already decided they were going to disperse us, despite the fact that we had permission.

KEN DAVIS: We'd had, like, a start time, and when that came, there was hardly anyone there and only some of us were wearing outfits. And then suddenly there was some change of shift by the police and new police came, and suddenly all these people came from I don't know where. And we started to try and dance with music down Oxford Street but they were just trying to get rid of us and we were running rather than dancing. I think people did join in Oxford Street and I think by the time we were getting to the bottom of Oxford Street, there was almost a thousand people.

RON AUSTIN: I heard one person say, "I'm out and I'm going all the way." And that was that person's first declaration, in a way. Had never been in a demonstration, never been in a parade, never stood up and was counted as a gay person. "I'm out and I'm going all the way."

JULIE MCCROSSIN: You've got to try and remember just how genuinely horrifying it was to people. Because I believe it was genuinely horrifying - not just to the police but to people in the general public. That women would say, "I'm a lesbian," that men would say, "I'm a poofter" - and we were using that language and trying to make it positive and not negative - and that men would dress as women, drag queens, who were great and courageous members of this struggle... That you would openly say that was horrific to people.

SALLY COLECHIN: All of the police removed all of their number tags and their name tags so that they could not in fact be identified. And then that, in some way, gave them licence to behave in whatever manner they saw fit.

DIANE MINNIS: There was, you know, pretty serious bashing and kicking and all sort of things going on. It was a real riot.

KEN DAVIS: More and more people came out as a result. They got involved and it really did start a political movement going.

RON AUSTIN: It was only an idea that people picked up and ran with. And the gay and lesbians who participated in every way made Mardi Gras. They made Mardi Gras. It's their Mardi Gras.

JULIE MCCROSSIN: Even now, in the 21st century, most families do not say, "Hooray! Our child's gay!" You know, not at all. It's quite traumatic for most people. And so it's necessary for those of us who feel able to be open, to be open to help bring the change.

GEORGE NEGUS: Julie, Julie, Julie. The Mardi Gras '78ers proving that you can probably do just about anything if you've got the right frock. This year's parade, by the way, is on this Saturday.